Almost 46% people have low to zero trust in Google ratings and reviews: Study

Google Search for a business or service is often accompanied by its ratings and reviews. These reviews aim to offer useful information and also help businesses to stand out. But more often than not, consumers find it difficult to trust these reviews, revealed a survey conducted by community social media platform LocalCircles. 

Asked to rate Google reviews and rating between ‘high levels of trust’ to ‘zero trust’, 39% of respondents showed a ‘low trust’ in it while 7% expressed a ‘zero trust’ in the offering. To gauge consumer trust in Google reviews and ratings, LocalCircle collected 56,000 responses from respondents living in 357 districts across various cities.  

The survey revealed that only 3% of respondents accepted having a “high trust” in these reviews and ratings. Moreover, 45% of the interviewees said that they found the reviews inaccurate with 37% termed them “positively biased”. 

According to the study, at least 88% of the respondents were those who used the search engine to find details of any business, went through its reviews and ratings. Only 12% of these people said that the ratings ‘always’ influence their decision while 7% said that they ‘never’ refer to them.  

Consumers said that anybody could rate a product or service, leaving great scope for fake, misleading, and excessively positive or negative ratings and reviews. In India, a large number of businesses even provide online reputation management as a service. These companies work with brands and businesses to generate positive ratings and reviews for them on Google and similar. One of their offerings also includes creating negative reviews for their competition. 

Owing to the several concerns raised by fake reviews online, India’s national standard body, the Bureau of Indian Standards — released a set of guidelines last month. These guidelines aim to safeguard customers from fake online product reviews and are directed to review authors and review administrators of global and homegrown platforms.  

“We will first see voluntary compliance of these guidelines and if we see the menace of fake reviews continuing to grow, we may make these guidelines mandatory,” Rohit Kumar Singh, secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs told media.